


Off with the Sleeve

by pagination



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Creepy, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-16 04:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/535320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagination/pseuds/pagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for sherlockbbc-fic prompt. Jim loves cats. People, not so much. But cats? Cats are good.</p><p>Slightly creepy fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off with the Sleeve

**Author's Note:**

> _“It is better to cut off your sleeve of your best robe than to disturb a sleeping cat.” - Mohammed_

_1._

 

The stray that Jim Moriarty named Miss Darling turns out to be a tom, which for some reason is a surprise to everyone but Miss Darling. “Naughty, _naughty_ puddy,” says Jim, holding her -- him, that is -- up to touch noses. Everyone else in the room winces. It's not just that Miss Darling has displayed a pointed antipathy towards two-legged life forms, which all of Jim’s intimates have experienced first-hand in the last two days; there’s also a general feeling that a man like Jim has no business cooing baby talk to a 2.5 stone cat. Especially if it’s done without irony.

Of course, as Sebastian points out later, it just makes ‘im scarier, don't it? Bloody nutter. The fondness in his voice is entirely for Jim and not at all for Miss Darling. Sebastian is allergic to cats.

At any rate, Miss Darling is a tom, and Jim Moriarty may be many things -- murderer, mastermind, madman -- but he is also a responsible pet owner. He puts down 25 quid at the local vet to get Miss Darling fixed, picks up several cans of expensive protein supplements, pays through the nose for a new cat tree, and carts all of them home to one of his flats.

He’s a man of obsessive tendencies, so it’s hardly a surprise to Sebastian that the next time they meet, Jim has memorized a doctorate’s thesis worth of information about the Maine Coone breed. 

“It was embarrassing how bad the Wikipedia entry was,” Jim tells him, while laying out the details of the next week’s domestic incident-cum-assassination. “I had to write the entire thing over again. I’ll have to have a talk with CatnipPopper32. He has no idea what to feed a cat.”

"Cat food?" Sebastian hazards. He answers Jim's reproachful look with an apologetic, "More of a dog person myself."

"That's not possible," Jim says, his eyes going worryingly cold. "You're a sniper. How could you possibly like dogs better than cats? That's some sort of character defect, isn't it?"

Sebastian, who has only managed to stay functional by dint of having mainlined antihistamines all morning, yelps as evil sinks sharp teeth into his ankle. He shoves back from the table and just barely keeps himself from kicking the cat, which is hunched beneath his chair and radiating malevolence.

Jim's face magically softens. He swoops on the increasingly inappropriately named Miss Darling, lifting the manically shedding sack of fur to rub his cheek against its head. “Who’s a silly love?” he coos. “Would you like to come with daddy on an errand after tea, pumpkin? We’ll scoop out CatnipPopper32’s eyes with a spoon. You can _pway_ with them.”

“You’re meeting Charlie Milverton this afternoon,” Sebastian objects, rubbing fiercely at his leg. 

“Five minute detour, tops,” Jim tells him earnestly, while the cat glares at Sebastian with smug yellow eyes. “Nobody who spells like that belongs on the internet.”

 

_2._

Jim has _twins._

Their names, Sebastian is informed, are Amabel and Blanche. Old-fashioned names. By Jim’s testimony, they’re lovely. “The bluest eyes you’ve ever seen,” he enthuses. “And they’re so _playful_.”

Jim’s idea of playful is occasionally amusing; often bloody; usually dangerous. 

“We’re in Knightsbridge,” Jim says. “Come along when you’re done. It’ll be a treat.”

Sebastian murmurs assent into the earbud and thumbs off the connection. Then he settles his cheek more firmly, stills his mind, and exhales. Thoughts of Jim and blue-eyed, frisky twins retreat. He finds the peaceful gap between time and space. Then he pulls the trigger.

The flat in Knightsbridge is not, at least, infested with Miss Darling. Sebastian calls out at the door, prudently making his presence known, before navigating his way through the various security measures that Jim’s agile mind has deemed necessary (or simply entertaining) that week. The living room is empty. _“In here!”_ Jim carols from the farther end of the flat.

Enthusiastic splashing sounds echo through the bedroom. Light is a milky wash from the bathroom’s half-closed door. Sebastian strips off his clothes as he goes, anticipation hectic under his skin; by the time he pushes the bathroom door open, water is a thin glaze across the tiles underfoot, and he is naked, if tacky with the day’s sweat.

The bathtub is large enough for four -- a luxury Jim insisted on, when he decided that he wanted a flat in Westminster. Jim, however, is the only one in it. On the long, towel-covered counter of the sink, a pair of Siamese cats sit bolt upright, prim bookends around a Glock 19. Their tails are wrapped tightly around their forepaws; at Sebastian’s entrance, their heads swivel in unison so they can stare at him.

He stops dead, self-conscious in a way he hasn’t been since his pimple-hagged teens. After a long inspection of his face, the ice-blue gazes of both cats descend to stare judgmentally at his groin instead.

Sebastian reaches slowly for a washcloth and covers himself.

“Aren’t they _lovely_?” Jim demands from the bathtub, He blows a kiss at Sebastian, then pats at his glistening shoulder with a loofa. “That one’s Amabel, and _that_ one is Blanche. They belong to my next door neighbor. A darling old woman. She fell and broke her hip. I’m cat-sitting.”

The sheer domesticity of the concept is enough to give Sebastian a swimming sensation. “For how long?” he asks, already feeling the prickle of allergies scratching in the back of his nose.

“For a week or so. However, I have a feeling that dear Ms. Wordling will be taking a fatal turn for the worse in a couple of days. Say hello to Uncle Sebastian, sweethearts.”

One of them -- Amabel -- yawns with disdain. Blanche puts a deliberate paw on the handgun, her cold gaze still considering.

“They’re practically part of the family already,” Jim is saying.

“I can see the resemblance,” Sebastian says, hollowly.

Jim’s smile gleams, an edge to it that borders on the vicious. Lust shivers in Sebastian’s belly at the sight; behind the washcloth, his cock stirs, sensitive skin grazing deliciously against the terrycloth. Blanche’s eyes narrow in immediate suspicion. Jim’s eyes do too, for a far different reason.

“Come in and join me,” he orders, his voice dropping to darker timbres.

The cats watch Sebastian for the rest of the night. They never seem to blink. It is somehow difficult not to feel that they are sneering at his performance. 

_3._

There are two cats in the flat in Knightsbridge; three in the house in Croydon; four in Dartford; one in Blackfriars; and four in Charing Cross. There are none in Stepney, but the flat there is new, and thus far does not allow pets. Jim’s dark utterances about such restrictions bodes ill for the landlord in question, though weighed against what happened to the cleaning lady who kicked Wiggles, it’s likely the landlord will have the better luck. He has a less painful future ahead of him, at least, and there’s a strong chance it might not be fatal.  Either way, it's at least one place Sebastian can visit without needing a lie-down afterwards. 

The rest of the time,  he does what his compatriots do around the globe, and gets most of his communications in person at prearranged meet points, or through charmingly sterile video conferences like today's.

It’s not what they’re used to, having Jim Moriarty convey his instructions from what looks like an RSPCA office, but then again, his usual video feeds are done against searingly inappropriate backdrops. By comparison, the bulletin board behind him with its posters and adoption photos are an embarrassment of normalcy. 

"The shipment is due to arrive on Thursday," General Nozadze's man reports, his English almost as impenetrable as his expression. "Payment will be routed through the usual methods."

“Toodles,” says Jim, his eyebrows taking on a Faustian slant, and wiggles his fingers at the camera. “No, not _you,_ ” he corrects with a frozen half-smile when Kesha, in Pakistan, lifts a puzzled hand in an answer.

A long, lean blur of grey oils across the screen, blotting out the man known as Moriarty. Across Europe, violent, ruthless men blink. Depending on their familiarity with technology, they slap their monitors, tilt their heads, or drum patient fingertips for the obstruction to clear. “Shame on you,” Jim’s voice says, and the obstruction is drawn away, the camera refocusing wildly until it rediscovers him in its field of view. A cat curls daintily in his arms, its face a patchwork salute to the Phantom of the Opera in blacks and whites. 

Jim lifts one of its paws and flexes it, dipping it in a soft-footed little wave at the camera. “Say hello to the powerful, the needy, and the stupid, Toodles,” he lilts.

In Uzbekistan, an explosives expert buries his face in his hands and mumbles prayers to his God.

“Did your phone call go okay?” asks Anita the fundraising coordinator when Jim finally emerges from the office, Toodles a dreamily self-satisfied ball of fur in his elbow.

Jim smiles bashfully, his face half buried in the cat's nape. “It was fine,” he says, shoulders hunching awkwardly. The cat purrs, eyes closing; it tips its head back, ears flicking, to rub the flat of its skull on the underside of his jaw. “Th-thanks. For letting me, you know, b-borrow--” 

He stumbles against a trashcan, then bumbles into a filing cabinet. Anita grabs quickly for the cat, but Jim recovers, Toodles well in hand, and cringes. “Sorry, sorry,” he babbles. “Didn’t see it, sorry, wasn’t paying attention.”

Anita smiles kindly at the shelter’s newest, shyest volunteer. “It’s okay. Took me months before I could walk around without barking my legs on something. The place is a minefield, isn’t it? Boxes and cages everywhere.”

Jim looks embarrassed, his gaze slipping somewhere just beyond Anita’s shoulder and settling there, avoiding the humiliation of actual eye contact. “I d-don’t mind,” he assures. “I just-- I like animals.”

“You’re good with them.”

“I like c-cats better than people, actually.” Jim is apologetic.

“God, don’t I know it. I used to dislike people. After working here long enough, I actually loathe them. You be careful, or else you’ll turn into a bitter misanthrope like me.” She strokes Toodles’s head with a practiced hand; the cat purrs louder, tiny tongue rasping against her fingers. “People can be so cruel to animals. Who’d hurt a sweetheart like Toodles? I mean, really. If the arsehole who owned her hadn’t died in that freak accident, I would’ve cut his balls off myself.”

Jim clutches the cat closer, eyes huge. The animal yawns, well-pleased with the attention. 

“Sorry,” Anita says with a swift grin. “Ignore me. I’m not supposed to talk about castration in front of the new guys. Don’t tell Mr. Swayabhi. You know, one of my favorite authors has a [story about the origins of the cat](http://www.redwoods.edu/Instruct/AGarwin/parable_of_the_cat.htm). I should lend you the book. I think you’d get a kick out of it.”

The new volunteer blushes, mumbles an alarmed thanks, and scurries away.

“Nice guy,” Anita tells Mr. Swayabhi later, as they lock down the shelter for the night. “Shy, though. But keen. He wants to help index the serial abuse cases. It’d be nice to get that project started, finally. No,” she says, answering the Director’s slow frown, “he volunteered. Like I said. Keen. I think he’ll do fine.”

 

_4._

“Look!” Jim cries, as he walks in the door of Ryan Milbank’s flat. “I’m wearing a kitty hat!”

Only Milbank looks, his eyes already stricken, black with horror. Maybe because of the kitty hat. Jim pauses in the doorway to give the others a chance to admire the effect of a small tabby draped over his head. To his displeasure, they choose not to. Professionalism, while to be admired, should still occasionally make room for whimsy. Still, he can hardly fault them for that. 

Well, no. In fact he _can_ , but Quartermain is already sliding off his head, so the moment’s lost, anyway. Jim doesn’t believe in cruelty to animals.

The _felis silvestris catus_ kind _,_ at any rate.

Quartermain leaps off his shoulder down to the floor, his tiny paws barely a fingers’ press on Jim’s shirt. Jim strolls where the cat does, picking his way around the meat sack remnants of Milbank’s father and sister. 

“I like cats,” he tells Milbank, tucking his hands in his pockets while Quartermain laps thoughtfully at a puddle of red. “They’re scrrrrrappy. I admire scrap. You’ve been a bit of a wally, haven’t you, Ryan?”

Milbank rolls his eyes, showing the whites around the irises. Quartermain yawns widely and wanders over to investigate. The soft little nose touches Milbank’s shoe; he jerks, catching the cat on the side of the head with his foot. There’s a squawl, then a streak of ginger and white.

Jim’s eyes go flat.

Later, back in Charing Cross, Jim practices making scary faces in the mirror. The faces are to go with the hat, which is not feline in nature this time; the trilby doesn’t make Sebastian’s eyes water, which is unfortunate in that it’s not quite as funny, but perhaps for the best when he will be expected to kill someone after the main course at dinner but right before the dessert.

Jim is hoping for a mascarpone cheesecake  with basil ice cream and pate au choux. 

“Meow,” he tells his reflection in the mirror, while the ladies (and Rochester) crowd around his feet to critique his appearance. “Tilt it to the left, do you think? Or to the right?”

One of the ladies -- Margaret, that is -- tilts her head to the right and yowls. Jim fixes the hat. “You have excellent taste,” he tells her gravely. The cat looks smug and pins Elizabeth down to wash behind her jaw. Elizabeth takes immediate offense, and in short order a frantic game of ‘kill the kitty’ is rolling around on the floor behind Jim.

He squints at his reflection in the mirror and shows his teeth. “I will _burn_ you,” he says, his voice thickening. “I will burn the _eyes--_ no, that’s too nancy. Tongue. Teeth? Nose hairs ... ugh. Soul?”

Rochester sneezes.

“I don’t think so, either. How about heart, then? I will burn the _heart_ out of you.”

Rochester stares at him in the mirror, his ears twitching uneasily. 

Jim runs his finger along the rim of his trilby, pleased with the effect. “That’s good. We’ll go with that. Who’s a terrifying psychopathic genius with _incredible_ fashion sense?”

Rochester makes a meeping sound. Jim beams. _That’s_ who.

_5._

“Oh,” Jim says. “You have _cats_.”

Molly Hooper flushes and scoops up the dainty black cat that has emerged to investigate the visitor. “Just the one,” she says, hugging the small animal to her chest. It halfway closes topaz-light eyes and touches her chin with its nose. “This is Toby. I should have asked, um, if you were allergic. I didn’t think. Are you? Allergic? To cats?” Anxiety skitters across her voice, making it quaver. Toby yawns. “We can go somewhere else, if you....”

“I’m fine,” Jim reassures, and gives Toby a hand to sniff. The cat lowers his head to regard it with disdain, sniffs, then licks it delicately and with growing enthusiasm. “I like cats.”

“He likes you,” Molly says with relief, blushing again. She smiles at him with those bulging eyes, fluttering like a hydrocephalic guinea pig, boring, boring,so _dull_ , but Toby is lovely. And Sherlock is lovely. So for the sake of the cat and his own dear, darling opposite in the Game Jim smiles back at her, not showing his teeth.

“Cats usually do,” he says, running his nails across Toby’s head and down the graceful line of his spine. The cat purrs, arching into his caress. Just like Sebastian, Jim thinks gleefully, and wouldn’t he just _hate_ that comparison. “It’s just you and Toby here, then?” he asks, prowling past Molly to investigate the excessively chintzed rooms beyond. Ruffles and lace on the windows. China ornaments. “No flatmates?” 

“Well, no,” Molly says, trailing after him. This time it’s her ears that turn pink, her eyes shining with embarrassed hope. “It’s just us. Me and the mister! That’s ... Toby, I mean,” she makes haste to explain, lest the joke prove too sophisticated for Jim’s teeny tiny mind.

Jim stands with his hands in his pockets in the middle of the sitting room, looking around him at the hideous limitations of Molly’s imagination as expressed in interior design. “It’s nice you have your privacy,” he says. “My flatmate’s a complete tosser. Always getting into my things, ordering me about, analyzing what I ate for lunch, why I’m dressed the way I’m dressed, who I fancy--” 

It’s a cue for Molly to talk about Sherlock. He _wills_ her to talk about Sherlock. _Talk about Sherlock,  you fucking cow._

“Oh, I _know_ ,” Molly says, pouncing eagerly on shared experience. Jim’s heart goes pitty-pat with anticipation. “That’s why I’m so lucky I have _Toby_.”

He might have to kill her ahead of schedule.

But Toby stares at him with wide, liquid eyes, and he’s just so _darling,_ so Jim rubs noses with him and gets licked by the cat, which he likes. Molly bridles coquettishly at him, which he doesn’t like so much, but he lets her do it. He even smiles back at her while coaxing Toby into his own arms. 

“He must have to spend a lot of time alone,” he says, fondling the cat’s head. “I mean, you have so many demands on you at work.”

Molly’s face falls. “I _know_ ,” she says guiltily. “I feel awful about it. I thought about getting another cat to keep him company, but he gets so jealous when my friends ask me to cat sit for them. Do you ever think about death? At all?”

It’s a hesitant question. Jim has to pull his attention away from Molly’s unlikely claim to have _friends_ to concentrate on it. “All the time,” he says, truthfully. “I guess you have to think about it a lot too, don’t you?” 

This conversation could bore for England, he thinks, but then Molly defies expectation and accidentally says something interesting. First, she titters. “I suppose I do. But it worries me. Not for myself, I mean. I mean, I don’t want to die, of course. Obviously. I’m not morbid or anything, I don’t think. But for Toby. I worry about Toby. What will happen to Toby when I die? I don’t want him to go to a shelter.”

“Wow,” Jim says, because that’s the kind of man Jim from IT is:  one who says things like, ‘wow’ and ‘geez.’ “That’s a good point. I’ve never thought of that.” Dismaying, but true. He’s not planning on dying, but who knows what might feel right in the flow of the moment? 

Oh, he’s a bad Daddy. Shame on him. 

“It keeps me up at night,” Molly says sadly, reaching for Toby in maternal anxiety. “I just imagine Toby being all alone, without anyone to take care of him and read him stories and brush him just the way he likes, and I just feel _terrible._ ” She buries her face in Toby’s nape. The cat blinks placidly while she sniffles. Jim decides regretfully that he'll have to let her live after all; can't let Toby end up a street cat, even if the poor dear's taste in people appears to be execrable. Right on cue, apparently feeling she’s grown too maudlin, Molly jerks straight to offer Jim a weakly misty smile. “Of course, sometimes it’s just Sherlock who keeps me up at night. Texting me, I mean, because he needs something in the morgue.”

Later, after he’s peeled an awkward and overly hospitable Molly off of him, Jim returns to the Stepney flat. Sebastian is waiting for him, already stretched out naked and dangerous across the bed. “Dear Seb,” Jim says, admiring the effect of Sebastian’s pale skin against the dark covers. “I’ve been having such a _good_ time.”

“As long as you’re having fun,” Seb says, a wary smile in his eyes. He nods over to a neatly wrapped package on the armchair: Carl Powers’s shoes. 

Jim spreads his arms and does a little dance, giggling. It’s like Riverdance, except with 100% less superfluous women.

Sebastian watches indulgently. “I thought you were with the Hooper woman today.”

The _Hooper_ woman. Sebastian sounds jealous. Not of pathetic little Molly, obviously. Jim wanders to the bed and smiles down at him from beneath his eyelids. Sebastian stretches deliberately, lean flanks shivering against linen. “I think I’ll have to make a will,” Jim says. “Just in case. I’ll leave you the cats, shall I?”

Sebastian sits up with a jerk, his face twisting into a scowl of dismay. “You’d better be taking the piss.”

“You’ll take good care of them,” Jim declares, flattening his hand on the inside of Sebastian’s warm, planed thigh. Sebastian shivers. Jim leans close to tickle his assassin’s ear with his lips. “Or _else_.”

Sebastian growls. Jim laughs, high and bright. It’s going to be a lovely, lovely week.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
